


Little Pieces of Time

by TheGreatFishstick



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Suicide Attempt, “I’m so glad you’re my partner in crime” - “As long as you’re my partner in time”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 15:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatFishstick/pseuds/TheGreatFishstick
Summary: Hey guys! Major trigger warning for this chapter! There’s suicide and really depressing stuff!





	Little Pieces of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [therutherfordwife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therutherfordwife/gifts).

> Many thanks to therutherfordwife. You’re a great beta reader and an even better friend. This ones for you

The wind whispered its way through the trees. The lighthouse beam threw itself across the low hanging clouds, illuminating the world’s low ceiling. I stabbed a straw into a juice box, sighing as I leaned back against the bench. The funeral was in an hour, but I wanted to stay here, on the cliffs. It was the place I felt closest to Chloe. She’d probably laugh if she saw me drinking from a juice box, but it reminded me of when we were younger. The happier times we’d had together, instead of these times, without her, when I’d wake screaming and feeling empty.  
My phone rang. I finished my juice box, letting it ring out. I knew it was my mother, asking me to come home and get ready. I wasn’t. Not just for the funeral, but to say goodbye to her. It had been a week since Nathan, and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it. Footsteps crunched behind me. I turned around. Joyce.  
“Figured I’d find you here.” She said. A faint smile tugged at her lips. She stood in silence for a few moments. She settled in beside me, groaning slightly.  
“This was one of her favorite spots, you know. She’d come here sometimes after fighting with David.”  
I hummed in agreement. I wasn’t ready to say anything yet. Joyce sighed, putting an arm around my shoulder and pulling me in close. I rested my head on her shoulder, drawing in a shuddering breath. A single tear made its way down my cheek, and then another, and then several more, until I was sobbing into her shoulder.  
“I’m s-so sorry!” I choked out.  
Joyce took me by the shoulders and looked at me.  
“Now what could you be sorry for?”  
“For not saving her! I was right there, and I could’ve done something! I should’ve done something, and instead I just froze! I just stood by and let her…”  
I trailed off into more tears. Joyce pulled me into a tight, motherly hug.  
“Now you listen here, Maxine Caulfield; Nothing that happened is your fault! The only person you should blame is Nathan. And I know, you feel responsible. I felt the same way after William.” She looked at me with watery eyes.  
“I feel the same way now, too. But no matter what you tell yourself, no matter how many times you run it in your head, desperately trying to think of what you could have done differently, you need to realize you can’t change anything. It’s already done, and time will march on. Do you understand? You can’t blame yourself, Max. She wouldn’t want that.”  
I nodded through the tears. I heard footsteps on the gravel behind us, and felt Joyce turn to look. Some unspoken conversation occurred and I felt a weight settle down on the bench next to me. I turned and saw my mother. She smiled at me sadly, and pulled me into a hug. We sat for a few minutes, embracing, and then my mother pulled me to my feet and kissed my forehead.  
“It’s time to go get ready, sweetie.” She told me.  
I nodded numbly and allowed myself to be lead back to the car, sniffling the whole way. The drive back to the motel was quiet. I took a hot shower and got into my clothes for the funeral.  
The majority of the funeral passed in a blur. All too soon it was over, and I found myself unready to let go. Joyce, David and My parents were all talking and I found myself wandering toward the casket. I knelt down in front of it, unsure of what I was doing. I sat for a few moments, and then the dam broke. All the words I had never managed to say came pouring.  
“Chloe, I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry I gave you up to save Arcadia, I’m sorry for not talking to you after I moved and I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you after William died and I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you how I felt until it was too late. Most of all, I’m sorry that it took your own death for me to realize how much I loved you.”  
I forgot everything else I said, but I remember the most important parts. I remembered her smile, her laugh, the shape of her as she stood over me in the morning to wake me, I remembered the way she smelled, a mixture of the stench of pot, engine grease and mens cologne. Most importantly, I remembered her goodbye.  
*  
The coming days after the funeral were quickly forgotten. My parents wanted me to come home, and I didn’t. I told them that I wasn’t going to run from her death like I had William’s. That I wasn’t going to leave her, not like I had when she was alive. My parents left two weeks after the funeral, but not before asking Joyce and David to check in on me when they could. Classes started the day after my parents left. I attended classes and did my homework, but life felt empty when I didn’t have anyone to share it with. My camera collected dust on my nightstand, a side effect of Mr. Jefferson’s arrest following my anonymous tip.  
Joyce came to check up on me a few days after my parents left. She left more concerned than when she arrived, but I was too tired to care. I saw Chloe everywhere I went. At the fountain outside Blackwell, graffiting the walls of my dorm late at night, smoking on the lawn, skateboarding on the sidewalks, swimming in the pool. She haunted my dreams at night, in the backgrounds, accusing, hating, loving, touching, fighting, graffiting, dying. Always there.  
I was sitting in my dorm, early in the morning one day, two weeks after the funeral, when I realized I didn’t want to live anymore. Joyce visited me that day, and I didn’t tell her, but she could tell something was off. I wrote a letter to Joyce and my parents. I dropped both off at Joyce’s house, early in the morning, two and a half weeks after the funeral. I walked to the lighthouse in the morning light. I sat on the bench, sipping a juice box. I sat and watched the water for who knew how long. My phone buzzed, and I checked: Joyce. I stood, answering.  
“Max, where are you?! I found your letters, Max, please just tell me where you are!” She begged.  
I heard the concern in her voice, and all at once the world came crashing back. I felt the pain I had felt watching Chloe die return, a fresh spike to the heart. All the emotions returned. Sadness, guilt, weariness, and a bone deep hatred for myself, for letting her die. I began to sob.  
“You told me she used to love this place once. I miss her Joyce. I miss her so much.”  
“I know sweetie, I do too, but I need to know where you are, okay?” I could hear the heartbreak in her voice.  
“I know why she loved it here, now. It’s so beautiful. The waves are so beautiful, and Arcadia is so small from here. So distant, insignificant. The sound of the waves, the birds in the trees. It’s just so peaceful. I just want peace, a moment without the pain.”  
“ I understand, but you need to hold on a little, okay? David and I are almost there, and then we can help you, okay?” She pleaded. I heard tires screech.  
“It’s too late to help now. Tell my parents I’m sorry, okay?”  
I stepped forward. The wind rushed through my clothes, drying the tears on my cheeks, the scent of salt filled my nose, and then the wind stopped. Cold water surrounded me, washing the pain and all the emotions away. Sweet, cold saltwater filled my lungs and I began to drift away as I sank slowly to the bottom of the bay.

**Author's Note:**

> Y’know, when I finished this chapter I was like “oh it’s 1300 words that plenty long enough, right?”  
Well I was fucking dead wrong. This shits barely even a page and a half on AO3. Whatever. I put work into this and that’s what counts.


End file.
